Georgia woman finds rare Masters Tournament program

Georgia woman finds rare Masters Tournament program

AUGUSTA, Ga. - A Georgia woman has unearthed a rare piece of golfing history while helping a friend go through boxes of old magazines and newspaper clippings.

Lexie Hollingsworth of Grovetown found a 1935 program for the Augusta National Invitation Tournament.

Only a few copies of the 40-page program are believed to exist, which makes the find a rare piece of Masters Tournament history, The Augusta Chronicle reported.

The program has a dark red cover and features an early version of the Augusta National logo, with the U.S. outline and a flagstick pinpointing Augusta. It contains information on the field, course and members of the private club.

Augusta National Golf Club produced programs for its inaugural event in 1934 and for the second year. There is no record of other programs being produced until 1990, when the club launched the Masters Journal as its preview magazine.

The 1935 Masters was won by Gene Sarazen, who made his famous double eagle on the 15th hole in the final round to force a playoff with Craig Wood. Sarazen prevailed in a 36-hole playoff the next day.

The program has some handwriting on a couple of inside pages, including hole-by-hole scoring of the playoff between Sarazen and Wood.

A 1935 program sold for more than $12,000 in April at greenjacketauctions.com.